How to type Hidatsa on a PC

This download reconfigures your keyboard so you can type Hidatsa letters that aren’t usually found on an English keyboard. Soon you’ll be able to write Hidatsa anywhere on your computer – whether you’re posting to Facebook, writing an email, or creating a Word document.

Right-click the link below and click Save As to save the file to your computer. Then double-click on the file to begin the installation. If you are ever prompted for permission to continue, just click Run or Allow. You may have to turn of your anti-virus software to ensure the keyboard installs successfully.

Once you have installed the software, just press the key in the top-right corner of the keyboard to turn on the Hidatsa keyboard layout. When you are done typing Hidatsa, just press the key again to switch back to the English keyboard layout.

Alternatively, you can see a list of keyboard layouts that you have installed in the language toolbar in the bottom right corner of your screen. On Windows 7, click the icon and select US – Hidatsa from the list. On Windows 8, click the ENG – US tab and select US – Hidatsa from the list.

Hidatsa has a few unique letters that don’t exist in the English language. With the Hidatsa keyboard layout turned on, the key (shown in blue above) produces the letter ʔ as in mawʔáagashi (“book”).

You can get the stress mark by pressing the apostrophe key (shown in pink above) after you type a vowel. For example followed by produces á as in náawi (“three”).

Holding down the key to the right of the space bar (shown in green above) makes the keys behave as they would in the English keyboard layout without requiring you to turn off the Mandan keyboard layout.

This software also installs six fonts onto your computer. This is because most other fonts still aren’t able to produce the Hidatsa letter ʔ. We recommend printing out this page so that you have a visual reference of the Hidatsa-compatible fonts.

Andika New Basic

Charis SIL

Gentium Basic

Liberation Mono

Liberation Sans

Liberation Serif

You might find other fonts on your computer that are able to produce all the Hidatsa letters. Some examples are listed below, although they are not included in this fonts bundle because of their copyright licenses.